


Deception (Is the Root Word of Decepticon)

by dragonofdispair



Series: Unrelated Prompt Responses [76]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, DW ProwlxJazz Anniversary 2019, Dark, Deception, Gen, M/M, Misunderstandings, Rape Aftermath, Secrets, Sexual Slavery, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Violence, but probably only slightly dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-12 17:09:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20567906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofdispair/pseuds/dragonofdispair
Summary: Prowl wasn’t raped, but that doesn’t mean the whole experience wasn’t traumatizing. It doesn’t mean there aren't any consequences. (DW ProwlxJazz Anniversary 2019. Day 6: Aftermath.)





	Deception (Is the Root Word of Decepticon)

**Author's Note:**

> This is supposed to go up on Sept 11 and... well, I guess it's the 11th in some parts of the world, right?
> 
> This is a continuation of [Fake Dating](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15525222/chapters/36411987) from last year’s AU August. I don’t think it’ll be necessary to read to understand what’s going on in this, but doing so puts a different spin on the beginning.
> 
> Beta'd by Rizobact.

◇─◇──◇────◇────◇────◇────◇────◇─────◇──◇─◇

.

.

.

Prowl let his optics flicker on at the voice. The room was still and dark so that nosy, snoopy medic hadn’t come in to leer at him again. Those were unpleasant encounters, but Prowl was comforted by the knowledge that Meister would rush in to drive off the interloper each time. Meister was possessive, and Prowl wasn’t just his only current plaything but also his favorite. Of course, the Decepticon was also very harsh in re-staking his claim on Prowl after such encounters, scratching any phantom touches off of him with his claws and taking him hard enough to make him scream. 

No one was here now though. Hallucinating? He didn’t have access to his diagnostics, but he thought his tolerance for reduced fuel rations to be better than that. He was tired. That medic should notice he was running on fumes, but he should have been able to make it to Meister’s return in the evening without difficulty.

Seeing nothing, Prowl let his optics flicker back off.

“Prowl.  _ Boss,” _ the voice insisted and this time Prowl’s optics flared to full brightness. He recognized that voice! “Come on, commander. Wake up.”

“Don’t look at me,” Prowl croaked. Those early cycles when a parade of mechs had come to see if Meister really had, finally, claimed a plaything had done their damage to his voice, though it had mostly healed in the time since.

He looked filthy. Debauched and broken and he didn’t want Mirage looking at him like this.

To his relief, a clean tarp settled over his frame, hiding the scratches and bites and paint transfers — his swollen  _ valve _ — from view. “I need access to your hands,” Mirage whispered. 

Fortunately, his hands were no longer cuffed painfully behind his back. Since he had begun starving Prowl into submission, Meister had also started cuffing Prowl’s hands together in the much more comfortable position in front of him. Obediently, Prowl pushed them out from the edge of the tarp. A klik later, the cuffs fell away and hit the floor with a heavy thump. 

Prowl quickly used his freed hands to pull the tarp tighter around himself as he sat up, away from the mess of tacky fluids — his and Meister’s — that had been left on the berth that morning. With his hands free, he could unhook himself from the chain around his ankle confining him to the berth and he shivered as it, too, fell heavily away from him, pooling on the disgusting sheets. This set wasn’t torn. Meister had replaced them when Prowl had stopped fighting.

“And the collar,” Mirage prompted gently. “I hate to compound any discomfort, but those usually have explosives in them.”

Prowl let out a pained croak. Letting Mirage have access to the collar would mean letting him see the series of savage bites and puncture wounds Meister had left across the top edge of his doorwings. 

He constructed ten different arguments, asserting that Meister had not used the explosive version of the collar, that he had been valuable enough to spare. Even in his own processor, the arguments sounded hollow. Of course, Prowl could not know which version of the collar Meister had used unless he’d told him, and even then the Decepticon could have lied. Had likely lied. Mirage would think that someone who would do what had obviously been done to Prowl could be depraved enough to do anything.

Gritting his teeth, Prowl loosened his grip on the tarp so that Mirage could work on the collar.

The spy was quick at least. For the very first time in  _ quartexes, _ he didn’t have that horrid thing around his neck. Prowl heard Mirage crush the locking mechanism in his hand, venting rage and frustration that he would never show in his frame or field.

“Here.” The cube of energon — a soldier’s ration — appeared in midair and Prowl grabbed it greedily. “Can you walk or do I need to change the rendezvous point?”

“I can walk,” Prowl assured him between gulps.

“Good. Finish that quickly.”

Prowl didn’t need any encouragement. He didn’t hear the spy moving away from the berth, but he saw the effects as he began rifling through the datapads on Meister’s shelves and the contents of his trunk.

The fuel returned strength to his frame and clarity to his processor. “What is the plan?”

“There’s a distraction on its way,” Mirage answered from somewhere near Meister’s footlocker. “While the Decepticons deal with the Wreckers, Blades is going to hop the wall and meet us in the exercise yard. If you can’t make it—”

“I can.”

“—Whirl and Sandstorm will join him and fight their way to us.”

It was on the tip of Prowl’s tongue to ask why, if the Protectobots were here, Defensor wasn’t being the distraction, but his tactical computer spat out the answer almost immediately. Blades was better equipped to evac Prowl and Mirage than any of the Wreckers were, and the Wreckers more than credible enough a threat that the Decepticons would respond to an all-out attack from them. That also freed up First Aid to provide emergency care had Prowl been in much worse condition.

“We’ve been coordinating with one of your undercover agents,” Mirage went on when Prowl didn’t speak. “This was supposed to go off almost two quartexes ago but then the, the…” he trailed off, looking for a tactful way of describing the situation.

“The Decepticon who claimed me,” Prowl provided for him evenly. “His name is Meister.”

The lid of the footlocker closed heavily; Mirage had obviously found everything of value. “Then Meister was transferred, and he kept you instead of leaving you at that base, so new arrangements had to be made. We’re all just glad your agent didn’t lose track of you.”

Prowl almost laughed. He knew exactly which of his agents had been coordinating his rescue, and why Meister had gone through the trouble of keeping him instead of leaving him for another Decepticon to claim.

“Ready to run?” Mirage asked, now standing by the door to Meister’s quarters.

“Yes.” He gathered the tarp more tightly around himself, hiding as much of his chassis from view as possible. Unfortunately, he could not keep his bared valve or unarmored spike under the sheet and keep his hips free to move and run. He stiffly stood, holding his legs tightly together to hide what he could. 

Mirage shimmered into view, and Prowl was relieved the spy was not looking at him at all. Instead, he had one hand on the door’s controls while his frame quivered with readiness. He was waiting for his signal from the Wreckers or from Blades, or perhaps both.

Prowl wished his comsuite was active.

He felt the tremor of large mortar shells going off nearby, but that was the only sign the battle had begun. A klik later a siren went off outside, though Meister’s quarters remained still and quiet, thick with anticipation. Did the alarm not go off in personal quarters, or had Mirage disabled them before waking him?

It didn’t matter right now, but it was interesting, and it was a variable that could affect future plans.

A glass knife — un-powered and non-metallic so as not to appear on security scans, but with a monomolecular edge that could cut all but the thickest armor… once — appeared in Mirage’s hand. Prowl did not ask for a weapon. He was in no condition for hand to hand combat, and if Mirage had brought a gun, he would have offered it to Prowl already. 

“Go,” Mirage said, keying the door open and darting out into the corridor. Prowl followed. His legs felt clumsy, his coolant slow and his hydraulics sluggish. He had not spent the quartexes solely chained to the bed, but he had not had access to an exercise yard as humane treatment of prisoners dictated.

Prowl forced himself to run anyway.

They turned a corner, and Prowl had only a nanoklik to recognize the stalker who had fancied him and come in to “check up on”, to  _ leer at, _ him at every opportunity. The more damage Meister had done to him, the more this mech had come to drool and to pet and to promise he would be so much better a master than Meister ever could as if Prowl had a choice. The harassment had never lasted long, as Meister had always come before this mech could do more than pet, but it had been a vicious, sadistic cycle as the encounters had always forced Meister to escalate his abuse.

Almost as soon as Prowl recognized him, and he recognized Prowl, Mirage had pounced. Using momentum where the svelte mech lacked the bulk, he slammed the Decepticon into the wall and pushed the glass knife straight through his optic and into his processor. 

Prowl trembled to see the mech lay there limply. Why had he been here? There was only one answer Prowl’s tacsuite could come up with: time and the battle outside had given him the courage to finally come and take Prowl for himself. Perhaps he thought Prowl really would see him as a savior, but all Prowl felt for the possibility was terror and loathing.

“Come on,” Mirage insisted with a tug at the tarp. Prowl reflexively held on tighter, but Mirage wasn’t trying to take it. Another glass knife had appeared in his hand, to replace the now-broken one. As soon as he had Prowl’s attention, he let go and took off running again. Prowl followed.

It was an almost dizzying journey through the corridors. Alarms blared and flashed, and Prowl did not know the way, which was disorienting all by itself. He was used to having the data to pinpoint everyone involved in a skirmish he was overseeing on a terrain map, a base blueprint, and by satellite at all times. To be unable to pinpoint even himself? Maddening.

Prowl heard helicopter blades as they approached the building’s exit, and he assumed it was Blades and/or Whirl since Mirage also clearly heard them but did not falter. They slammed through an unlocked door and into the bright sunshine. Prowl stumbled. Hands landed on his shoulders and he lashed out at them before he realized it was Mirage, supporting him those final, crucial steps to Blades. 

Mirage guided Prowl to duck his head. Blades had neither transformed, nor even fully landed. Instead, he hovered, potentially lethal blades only a short distance above them. Dust and rust from the yard flew up in clouds around them, blinding him. 

He almost fell into the medevac berth attached to Blades’ landing skids. Prowl squirmed and struggled as Mirage pulled the tarp over him and buckled him down. He knew it was for his own safety, but it was so like being held down on the bed that he couldn’t help but struggle. 

Mirage yelled something, but it was drowned out. He must have realized it because with a snarl of frustration Prowl could barely see through the dust, he roughly held Prowl’s hands together and pushed him down into the mattress. He buckled the last straps without explanation or comfort. Prowl still struggled, beyond the comfort of words anyway. He did NOT want to be tied down again! An energon drip was already set up above the berth, and Mirage injected a syringe into it. He stabbed the needle at the end of the drip into the gap in his armor at his elbow, then smacked Blades’ chassis twice. 

Immediately they began to lift up into the air. Prowl remembered what was going on long enough to worry that Mirage would be left behind, but he felt the helicopter rock violently and caught a glimpse of Mirage clinging to the bottom of Blades’ other skid, already fishing a sniper rifle out of his other skid-mounted berth to take advantage of the height and do some damage on their way out.

Prowl tried to insist they give him communications access. He was in no condition to direct the battle, but he could observe. But even if he could get his voice to work, the rotors were much too loud for either of them to hear him while in flight. He tried to roll over so he could at least see it as they flew over, but he was strapped down too tightly. 

Or was he? He might have just been wrapped in too much soft fiberglass batting. He tried to push the fluffiness away, but he couldn’t really move effectively. There should have been a reason to object to that, but Prowl couldn’t remember it. The tarp was warm against his plating in the cool night air, and he watched Blades’ rotors spin against the sky… 

Prowl didn’t realize he’d fallen into recharge until First Aid’s hitched sob brought him out of it. The drugged fuzziness didn’t recede, but he fought his way through it. He  _ had _ been drugged. Mirage had drugged him. The realization helped him compartmentalize and focus. “Where—” 

“We’re in a bivouac fifty kilometrons away from the Decepticon base,” First Aid answered before Prowl could finish the question. “The Wreckers are wrapping up and retreating now. No casualties on our side and minimal combat injuries.” 

That information settled into Prowl’s processor and calmed him. A bivouac meant they would be moving as soon as the Wreckers returned. “Report.”

“On the… the battle?” First Aid asked hesitantly. “Or your condition?”

Prowl sneered. His diagnostics were offline still, but he already knew all about his  _ condition. _ He pulled the tarp that was still under him back around himself, hiding the injuries and his bared interfacing arrays, as he sat up. First Aid had already seen enough to start cleaning him up, but it didn’t appear he’d started any repairs yet. “The battle. You said minimal injuries.”

“The Wreckers haven’t actually reported any,” First Aid said with an aborted gesture for Prowl to hold still and lay back down. “I’m just assuming there’s going to be some. Sir, please. You need to rest. You need repairs.” Prowl narrowed his optics and glared. “Your… your chest plating is misaligned and your spark chamber…” First Aid trailed off.

“I remember it happening,” Prowl responded harshly. Jazz had been frantic. The delays in arranging Prowl’s rescue had already forced them to escalate Meister’s apparent abuse so much, and the ordered transfer to another base had nearly broken Jazz’s resolve to keep his cover. Just like “starving” Prowl into obedience had been before, the final step to simulating a spark rape and Meister’s obsession with breeding his plaything had been Prowl’s idea. It had justified Meister’s insistence on keeping Prowl with him. Jazz would not have done it, even in simulation, if he had not insisted. Opening up his chest plating and misaligning the components, as though it had been forced open many times, had been as painful as being shot, and putting the marks on his chamber had been worse.

“I don’t have the facilities to treat you here,” First Aid said pleadingly. 

“I’m not carrying.” 

“There’s nothing in your forge,” the medic only half-agreed. “But I don’t have the equipment here to check your spark.” 

Prowl just stared flatly. “I need communications access to the Wreckers’ frequencies.”

“I need you to lay down so I can finish cleaning you up and actually  _ repair _ your comsuite,” First Aid snapped back, then winced. “I’m sorry, Sir, that was uncalled for. But I need to clean you up and catalog your injuries and then I can start repairs.”

Prowl did not want his injuries  _ cataloged. _ He remembered every scratch, every bite, every scream, every artful scrape of paint. Jazz had been careful with each one, calculated more for the visual effect than damage or pain, but that meant there was no blurring of Prowl’s memory as he’d inflicted them as there would have been with real torture or an actual violation. He knew he looked debauched, broken,  _ like a well-used fragtoy. _ They had meant for him to, and it had been humiliating even with no one but Jazz and his leering visitors to see.

Whatever First Aid saw in Prowl’s expression or field made his minimal faceplate soften and he reached out in sympathy. Prowl did not let him make contact with his plating. “You know I have to record everything, Sir. You know I do, but I can make sure no one sees you until you’re repainted. No one will see the report except myself and Ratchet.”

Those reports were for the tribunals, to try Decepticons who engaged in this practice of… taking Autobots as playthings in absentia and then update a list of enemy mechs who were to be executed immediately after their interrogations rather than moved to a prisoner of war camp. To give the victims a symbolic justice, even if actual justice was unavoidably delayed. “You won’t submit it to Command.”

“You’re the one who processes those,” First Aid pointed out. 

“True.” Prowl usually didn’t actually read the medical parts of the report when authorizing and arranging for a tribunal. The overseeing medic’s summary and the victim’s word was enough for them to move forward with the trial. 

“No one will know the details,” the young medic soothed. “Just lay back down.” He started to push Prowl back down onto the berth, but Prowl again evaded his touch. “Lay down,” he insisted, and this time Prowl obeyed. First Aid pulled another energon drip over. “Mirage said you were low on fuel when he found you.”

_ Starving me into submission. _ The justification was on the tip of Prowl’s tongue. Jazz had not so much  _ starved _ him as just withheld his daily allotment until the evening so he would be low on fuel during the daytime shifts. He couldn’t tell First Aid the truth, but he couldn’t say such awful things about Jazz either, so he just stayed silent. Had it been real, Prowl would not have submitted until literally too weak to move, but it had justified the illusion of cooperation with his captor. 

“Yes,” was all he said, eventually, when it was evident that First Aid expected an answer. He saw the syringe and narrowed his optics. “Do not drug me again.”

“It’s just a frame relaxant,” First Aid assured, injecting it into the drip before attaching the drip to Prowl’s elbow much more professionally and painlessly than Mirage had earlier. “It won’t interfere with your processing.” 

Prowl glared at the medic, but it was too late. 

.

.

.

By the time they returned to Iacon in a slow-moving medical transport, Prowl’s frame had been thoroughly investigated in exacting detail. Samples of the dried fluids on and in him had been taken, analyzed, and added to the growing file. Photographs of every scratch and scrape were taken. Paint chips from his plating had been sealed into sample bags and stapled to print outs describing every, single mark on him. First Aid gave special attention to the marks around his spark chamber, despite Prowl’s reluctance. 

He felt violated by the evidence-gathering. He felt violated by the growing file of supposed deprivations he’d been subjected to. He almost wished it had happened as the file described, because then he could frame this as one step towards justice, instead of an invasive farce he had to bury along with everything else about Jazz’s cover identity. He could have summoned righteous rage, instead of being stuck with a tired resentment.

As First Aid had promised, he repaired all the plating damage and repainted Prowl before he had to so much as step into the larger part of the medical transport where Whirl, Springer, and Roadbuster were all recovering from their own injuries. 

Ratchet met the transport outside Iacon’s walls to confirm Prowl was not carrying, and Prowl was not certain what to think of the two medics’ reactions. They had been relieved, yes, but inexplicably saddened on Prowl’s behalf

“What?” he snapped to them. His temper had fluctuated wildly the last few cycles, from glacial to uncommonly explosive and Prowl hated it because it wasn’t  _ him, _ but there wasn’t anything he felt he could do about it just yet. He needed  _ normal. _

“As many times as it looks like your spark was forced open…” First Aid started, then trailed off.

Ratchet picked up the thread, “It’s almost impossible that you didn’t kindle at least once. You probably self-aborted because of the lack of fuel.” 

“Impossible. I did not kindle.” He had not kindled because  _ Jazz had not touched him! _

“You’re not carrying now—” 

“Get out,” Prowl snarled, flaring his doorwings wide. In his temper, he snatched up one of the tools laid out next to the medical berth. If either of them said anything else…

They didn’t; they left him to his contemplation and his secrets. Unsure of what he was thinking, Prowl subspaced the tool as he paced, and the transport joined a supply shipment and rumbled into Iacon under the cover of darkness. What might have been a triumphant return to Iacon instead morphed into a secretive one. Instead of being presented to gladdened friends and coworkers, he was snuck into his quarters like he was something to be ashamed of.

He locked the doors to his room and flopped down on his berth. He fell into recharge instantly as his frame flushed out the last of the medics’ blasted drugs. He could only wish it had been a dreamless rest. He dreamed not of Jazz, but of Meister. Prowl did not see him following him as he tried to hold the base together with flex tape, but he could hear him, especially in the still, silent corridors where liquid leaked from cracks in the walls. He thought he should stay in the occupied rooms, but he could not ignore his duty and was forced to venture out again and again into the dark or else the base would fall apart. There Meister tracked him, his footsteps nearly silent on the stone. 

_ Mine, _ he whispered, and even here, the Autobot base echoed with it.

But Prowl couldn’t tell the others why he was reluctant to go out into abandoned corridors, so he was sent deeper and deeper, into the crumbling foundations of Iacon, to tape the base back together with his roll of tape, which was running low.

The footsteps fell silent. Relieved, Prowl turned the corner. 

A red visor loomed up out of the shadows. Prowl stumbled back with a scream; the liquid from the cracks poured out and sublimated into mist that condensed into ropes, chains, writhing metallic tentacles that wrapped around him and held him into place. The mist blocked all of Prowl’s sight, save for that terrible red visor. 

He felt hands on him, claws digging into his armor, ripping as he struggled and fought, uselessly.

_ Did you think you could escape me? _ Meister hissed. He ripped away Prowl’s modesty armor, exposing him; the cool brush of air, of helpless exposure, was too-familiar in his memory.  _ You’re mine. _

“No!” Prowl woke with his captor’s laugh still ringing in his audios. He reached down to touch his pelvic armor and gratefully found it intact. He wasn’t sure why he slid it aside, but he was horrified to find his valve wet and prepared to interface.

He abandoned sleep in favor of a shower. It was an act of willpower not to scrub his paint off. He was a commanding officer; he couldn’t walk around with paint scrapes like a whore… or a toy.

The next cycle he was scheduled for a debriefing, but it appeared no one knew who Prowl was supposed to debrief to. Usually, in a situation like this, an Autobot would debrief with his commanding officer, but Prowl’s only commander was Optimus Prime, who was elsewhere at the moment. Instead, Prowl ended up in a conference room, alone with a copy of the investigation file and his medical details. A tribunal file had already been started, and Mirage’s report/testimony had already been added to the medic’s. Automatically, Prowl redacted the mention of the Decepticon’s name in Mirage’s report with a thick, dark pen.

Did this mean he was to do his own debriefing? That he was signing off on his own return to work? There was a note at the bottom of the meeting agenda that an abbreviated copy of the interview text needed to be forwarded to Red Alert before Prowl’s security clearance could be reinstated, but the security director himself was not present.

So Prowl sat down at the conference table and conducted his own interview. He wrote out the version for Red Alert first, describing his capture and emphasizing that he had been selected as a personal plaything  _ before _ interrogations on his group of prisoners had started. His new captor had not been interested in his identity, any information he might have, or his processor. He had not been asked any questions or hacked. From reading the salient sections of these debriefings in the past, Prowl knew Meister’s disinterest in his toy’s identity and information was more than normal. Even that he’d been pulled out before interrogations wasn’t unusual, as interrogation tended to make potential playthings less attractive. He did not say he hadn’t been tortured since under the Autobot code the repeated violation by an enemy combatant was more than grounds for claiming he had been, but he had not been  _ interrogated. _ The distinction was important, especially to Red Alert.

Caving under torture alone was exceedingly rare. Because of that, Decepticon interrogators always hacked their victims, with or without additional torture, and it was that hacking — or in this case, the lack of it — that Red Alert cared about.

With that out of the way, he debated what to do about the official, tribunal, copy of his experiences. 

These reports were usually done in exacting detail and then summarized with a recommendation that a trial go forward. Prowl squirmed at doing yet another in-depth analysis of his supposed violations, this time recounted in his own words and not in medical aftermath. But… 

Prowl started with the skirmish that had initially led to his capture. He described the injury to his optics which had blinded him while the prisoners were processed. He described the preparations he’d done to resist the inevitable interrogation, fighting the large tank Decepticon who had pulled him up to be inspected. 

_ “That one… Perfect. Take him to my quarters. Good thing I like ‘em feisty. Make sure he’s cuffed, m’kay?” _

Prowl shivered. Before he knew it, he was writing about the terror he’d felt realizing he hadn’t been singled out for interrogation. He wrote about his ruthless conclusion that this was a better fate for the Cause than having his firewalls broken and his information taken by the enemy, and how that conclusion hadn’t made him any less scared.

He’d fought. Primus he’d fought against his captor. He wanted whoever read this after him to know that, to realize that he hadn’t just given in and allowed himself to be raped. 

He hesitated when he got to the part where Jazz had repaired his optics and he’d looked up and seen a savior instead of a tormentor.  _ Meister _ would not have repaired him. If he had acknowledged the injury at all, it would have been to laugh at Prowl’s attempts to spit on him. The Decepticon had every reason to leave him blind. But that was not an injury that would be echoed in the medical report, because  _ Jazz _ had repaired it.

To keep things consistent, he would have to backtrack and rewrite the debriefing up to that point to erase that injury from existence, or…

_ When he climbed on me to fully disable my optics, I held still,  _ he wrote, _ because I did not want to lose the optics entirely. Of course I already could not see. According to diagnostics I had run before diagnostic functionality was shut off by my original captors, the injury was already severe enough that I did not believe it could repair itself. My newest captor could not know that, though, so I suspected he was guaranteeing I would not unexpectedly regain my sight. Both injury and sabotage could be repaired easily by a medic, but based on my knowledge of our our supply of spare parts, replacing the optics entirely would take quartexes at least. So I did not fight this. I held still.  _

_ When he was done, my optics came on and I recognized one of my own undercover operatives… _

Now that he’d committed to it, the words spilled out fast. It was <strike>cathartic</strike> self-indulgent of him, but it needed to be written. Prowl needed to write it. He could refuse to talk about his captivity, but there needed to be some record, somewhere, or else Prowl felt like he might go mad under the weight of others’ expectations. 

Whenever someone came in to gawk at Prowl, or when Meister had visitors, Jazz would have him scream once they left. To convince any eavesdroppers that Meister was taking his jealous possessiveness out on Prowl.

Prowl’s shoulders still ached from that first decacycle where they had tied his hands behind his back while Jazz was gone. It bordered on a stress position, but as Prowl had been laying down, as long as he didn’t fight or tense in the restraints it wouldn’t do damage for a few cycles. With how combative Prowl had been when Meister had chosen him, nothing less would be convincing. He could have slipped the restraints and moved if the position had become dangerous. They had made sure of it. Prowl emphasized that. He hadn’t dared to do so, though. The risk of being caught out of the cuffs by his “admirer” even after Meister’s transfer had been too great.

After the first delay in his rescue, Jazz had insisted they start cuffing Prowl’s hands in front. Prowl had resisted at first. Few Autobot “playthings” gave in that quickly, not without massive injuries that made fighting impossible. Jazz had told him to figure out a way to  _ make _ it reasonable because he wasn’t putting Prowl’s hands behind his back again! Prowl had suggested Meister start starving him, and rewarding cooperation with fuel. Jazz had not been pleased.

So many delays. Jazz had run himself ragged keeping Prowl safe from interrogation and questioning, from mechs who wanted to touch, fondle,  _ rape _ Meister’s pretty, damaged Praxan. Prowl had not balked at doing his part, letting his paint degrade, scratches accumulate. Enduring the ache in his valve from the toy so that he always looked recently fragged. He’d been wearing more of Meister’s paint than his own by the end. The injuries to his chest that let them pretend Meister was trying to force him to kindle… Prowl had not balked. Not backed down. Even when Jazz had said it was too far, Prowl had continued the deception.

There were Autobots and civilians who  _ did _ end up in this position, who  _ did _ endure everything Prowl was pretending to. There was humiliation and shame and guilt that he was being awarded consideration for his "experiences" when there were real victims who never did get rescued.

The gush of words slowed and halted. There was guilt there, at the end, that he would have to continue this deception even here. It wasn’t safe for Jazz. It wasn’t fair to him, but it wasn’t safe either.

He signed the testimony and dated it. And then he filled out the recommendation for a trial. He (the victim) was refusing to testify. He (the interviewer) did not think there were grounds for a tribunal. 

Prowl went back through his testimony and carefully redacted every mention of both Jazz and Meister’s names, then any identifiers that could be linked to himself, classified it, then subspaced the whole file. He’d put it with the other records on the Meister assignment, sparse, hidden, and inked over as they were. That would keep them separate from Jazz’s records until he was retrieved and the two files combined.

A notice popped up on his HUD: the psychologist was waiting and wanted to see Prowl as soon as his debriefing was over. He sighed. 

He felt tired, wrung out by his <strike>confession</strike> report. Prowl did not feel up to repeating the lie so soon after recording the only truth he could admit to. He declined the appointment.

The response was swift: a reminder that he could not return to his duty until he had been evaluated by the psychologist.

Prowl wrote himself a reminder to make an appointment eventually and dumped the message in his circular file.

He went down, into the bowels of the Iacon base. This was where Special Operations reigned, where high-value prisoners were kept, where Mirage and other operatives got their assignments. Sometimes even the Wreckers called this place home. The psychologist could tell him he wasn’t cleared for work, but could not bar him from doing so as long as he worked here.

He filed the flimsies from his debriefing where they belonged. Then he sat down at his desk, logged into his personal terminal, and started dealing with quartexes worth of backlog. He dealt with his messages first, deleting whole swaths of them which were either spam in the first place, personal, or no longer relevant. He checked in with agents, read their reports, updated his plans. Working alone in the darkened room, away from prying optics and well-meant concern, Prowl felt more like himself than he had since his capture. 

This secretive refuge in his job was a temporary reprieve, he knew. Eventually, he would have to go in, talk about his supposed experience, and get his job back  _ officially, _ but… not this cycle.

A new mission appeared in his inbox. Prowl was tempted to leave it until he’d finished correlating this report from Agent 17789 with the reports from the army’s scouting units. There were a  _ lot _ of reports that needed correlating, and that wasn’t exactly a task that could wait. But a current mission…

He opened the message.

Mirage was one of Prowl’s highest ranked and most trusted agents. His missions often required him to change the parameters of what he was doing on the fly, without checking in, without authorization. As such, he had a lot of leeway in assigning himself to missions or changing them, up to and including grabbing other units and changing  _ their _ orders to match. It was likely why Mirage had been the one to rescue him. Without Prowl, very few agents had the authority to act on their own and Mirage was the closest Special Ops had to a second in command. Right now, the spy had used his authority to assign himself to go assassinate Meister. Prowl… barely remembered telling him his tormentor’s name during his rescue, before he’d judged it better that no one be able to connect Jazz to Meister to Prowl’s captor.

Prowl denied the mission and called Mirage to his office, hoping he had actually filed the mission plan before implementing it rather than his usual MO of filing after his new or changed mission was underway. 

Prowl refused to dwell, finishing up that correlation he had been working on when interrupted. It was still a tense wait. 

Finally, Mirage did slip into his office. 

Prowl closed down his terminal and regarded his agent as he slid into the deliberately uncomfortable visitor’s chair opposite the desk from his own. Mirage’s posture was as haughtily casual as any noble’s. He even had a small cube of energon dangling from his hand as though he’d forgotten he’d taken it while circulating through one of the Towers’ infamous parties. But Prowl could see that his optics were flinty, angry. 

“There a reason I’m here?” the spy drawled, the very picture of boredom. 

“I am removing your authorization to assign yourself assassinations unless you are in currently incommunicado during another Op,” Prowl stated evenly. “And you — and all of your equipment,” he added, well aware that arranging accidents could be done long in advance and triggered from very far away, “are to stay at least five hundred metrons away from him.”

“Already have something planned?” Mirage didn’t even sound curious. He lounged in the chair as though he had all the time in the world. 

“Yes,” Prowl lied, though he was making up this plan as he went, and it didn’t include revenge. That was hardly a plan at all, and he didn’t like this form of hurried, disorganized damage control. 

Mirage considered that, swirling his <strike>prop</strike> drink in his hand. Prowl waited. Mirage took a sip.

He set the drink down on Prowl’s desk. “Understood,” he said and stood. 

“Dismissed.” 

Mirage left.

Prowl contemplated the drink, then pulled up his spy’s missions for the last few quartexes. As Prowl had been unavailable, all of them had been self authorized, including his attempts to work with the unknown undercover operative to rescue Prowl. Other missions by other agents had… stalled, except for emergency extractions. Those currently on missions had continued to check-in and file their reports, but it didn’t appear that anyone had been taking in those reports and assigning operatives to undertake new missions. Much less correlating and combining those reports with those sent in by the regular army and their scouts. It was a wonder the whole front line hadn’t been pushed back more than it had been.

Prowl quickly started to fix that. The war effort could not afford for Special Operations to be stalled!

Too much about how this all worked was kept in his processor, Prowl decided once he had everything moving again. The Jazz/Meister connection was only one of countless bits of information. Combine that with the fact that there was no one immediately authorized to take over in his absence… It was a disaster waiting to happen. His recent — thankfully temporary — absence had highlighted this. He was the most qualified for this post, but the Autobots could not afford for him to be irreplaceable. 

He needed an apprentice. Or two. Or three. 

He thought about his agents as he pulled up personal records for other strategists in the army. Mirage would actually be a good choice for a second in command of Special Operations. He had the rank, the skills, leadership qualities… but his talents were best used in the field. That was true of all his agents, to one extent or another, but especially so for the invisible spy.

Well… there was always Jazz.

.

.

.

End

  
  
  



End file.
